Who is Dave Fleet?

Well, Sir Dave is the Senior Vice President of Digital at Edelman’s Toronto office. No big deal, right? Anyways, he has a blog that’s pretty informative and well-versed on all things related to communications and PR. It’s called davefleet.com. Not very original, I know, but Mr. Fleet is quite relevant in the world of PR. He writes about advancements in fields relating to marketing, social media, communications, and of course, public relations. Considering that Fleet works for one of the most prominent PR agencies in the world, it is safe to say that he has much authority in the world of PR.

Prior to working at Edelman, Fleet launched and built a digital communications practice at a mid-size agency. Additionally, in 2008, he was presented with the Amethyst Award, the highest award available to Ontario public service staff.

As a side note, it is important to note that although Fleet works for Edelman, he does not write on behalf of the company. The thoughts and opinions found on davefleet.com are all his own.

Fleet began his blog in 2005, but did not consistently post until 2007. Today, he is rather inconsistent in his posts. Sometimes he’ll post a couple times a week, and other times he will make a post every other month. Considering that the quality of his posts, it seems that this format works well for Fleet. I believe that Fleet only makes a post when he thinks it is actually informative.

This leads me to talk about the tone of davefleet.com. Fleet chooses an informative and serious tone when writing his posts. The blog is well written, and his posts are both concise and pretty easy to comprehend. He uses several photos, which give the posts a nice visual component. However, he only uses photos when it actually makes sense for the post. For example, the post “How Lean In Got Me Thinking,” doesn’t contain any photos, but it is short and easy for the reader to follow along. In the end, I actually learned something from reading this post. Fleet places more emphasis on the content of his blog rather than its aesthetic factors.  Still, the layout of the blog is sleek and professional, which goes along perfectly with the tone of his posts.

On the other hand, in the post “Marketing, Community, Support, or All of the Above?” Fleet uses two pictures, but both of those pictures have a purpose. For example, one of the subheadings in his post is “When I Was Your Age…”, and Fleet put a picture of an older man sticking his cane out towards the reader. This picture makes sense with the post. Also, Fleet included an infographic that supported the point he was trying to make in the post

Reader engagement is quite low on davefleet.com. The highest amount of comments that I could see on a post was 20, which may mean that Fleet’s readers either do not feel comfortable commenting on posts or they may just view the blog as a purely informational source. Also, I couldn’t find an instance where Fleet actually responded to any of his readers’ comments. This may or may not be hurting the number of readers. According to the Alexa ranking system, davefleet.com is ranked number 462, 165 globally and 311,037 in the United States. In order to gain a higher readership, it may be a good idea for Fleet to post on the blog more consistently. Additionally, it would be beneficial if he were to interact on a more regular basis with his followers.

Let's make a viral video!

It seems that all anyone wants when they post a video on the internet is for that video to go viral. What most people don’t know is that making something go viral doesn’t always just happen by accident. In fact, most, if not all, of the viral videos that are produced by major organizations are specifically tailored to go viral.

Yes, it’s true that sometimes a video does go viral by accident. Take for instance the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos. This is a slightly different case in the sense that it is not one particular video that went viral, but instead a whole slew of videos with similar content that went viral. According to the ALS Association, the charity responsible for taking in the donations from the challenge, it did not foresee the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to become nearly as successful as it was.

In other cases, however, a company puts in months and months of effort into a video in the hopes that it will go viral. One example of this is the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video, which went viral in 2013. Just in case you are not familiar with the video, which has over 64 million views on YouTube, I’ll provide a brief summary.

In the video, several women describe themselves to a forensic sketch artist who cannot see his subjects. The same women are then described by strangers whom they met the previous day. The sketches are compared, with the stranger's image invariably being both more flattering and more accurate. The differences create strong emotional reactions when shown to the women. The overall goal is to show women that they are more beautiful than they think they are by comparing self-descriptions to those of strangers.

Now, what do the Dove Real Beauty Sketches video and the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos have in common? Both videos contain engaging content. The first step in producing a viral video, is great content. Without good content, no one is going to want to watch that video, right?

The second thing that these videos have in common is that they were performed/shared on social media by key influencers, such as celebrities. In order for a video to go viral, it must be easily shareable, or else people will have trouble showing the video to their friends and family.

In addition to the good content and shareability of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos, the challenge had a little bit of luck on its side. Sometimes, good timing can be a key factor in whether or not a video will go viral, but the Dove Real Beauty Sketches creators took the content and shareability of the video to a social video marketing agency.

You might ask, “What is a social video marketing agency,” and that’s the same question I had when I first heard of it. After doing some research on the company that Dove used, Unruly, I was truly amazed at the existence of such a company. Essentially, Dove paid Unruly to place the video on major outlets, as well as several forms of social media platforms. So whenever you scroll down your Facebook feed and see “sponsored post,” that’s exactly what Unruly did for Dove. It’s a new form of advertising, and sometimes it doesn’t work, but in the case of Dove it worked out fantastically.

Love at first click?

So, I think I met someone. Well, sort of...

Recently, I have been researching people online who also have an interest in public relations and the world of communications. In my search, I found a user that goes by the name of “Benayers,” and he (in my mind, Benayers is a he so let’s just roll with that) introduced me to some fascinating stuff that I had never read before I stumbled across the links he shared. Let’s just call Benayers my social bookmarking soul mate.

Now, I don’t know much about my soul mate, but everything that I could gather from him came from his posts. Unfortunately, Benayers has not posted anything significant this year, but he did share an abundance of great material last year. Most of his tags include #pr, #publicrelations, #communications, which are pretty much the same tags I use for all of my posts! It’s true love, I know.

On a more serious note, though, Benayers shared three extremely insightful articles last year. Each on of them offered a new perspective into the world of PR, which is really amazing considering I’m studying the subject on a regular basis.

I just wanted to share some of Benayers’ links with you guys so that you could also be blown away!

1. “The Press Release is Dead”

http://stokethis.tumblr.com/post/55867232946/game-of-thrones-breathes-fire-into-next-season

Wait, what’s that you say?! The press release is dead? It just cannot be.

Those are the exact words that came through my mind when I read the title of this article, and then I actually read the article. This is when I found out that the press release was not dead, but it was just being reformatted in Canada. According to this article, the press release would no longer consist of dense blocks of text, or the use of long titles in headlines and leads. Instead, Canada decided to opt for a more digitally friendly format when it comes to press releases.  This entails two or three paragraphs of short, crisp text that will allow readers to scan quickly for the key messages of the announcement. The new format also offers quick access to key facts and additional resources. Never before in my wildest dreams did I ever think a PR staple such as the press release would ever be reformatted, but this actually seems like a good idea to me. This format was just implemented in Canada last year, and if it proves successful I don’t see why American agencies wouldn’t pick it up.

2. “Game of Thrones Breathes Fire Into Next Season”

http://stokethis.tumblr.com/post/55867232946/game-of-thrones-breathes-fire-into-next-season

Okay, so I admit that I'm a little bit biased about this link. I love Game of Thrones, so I clicked on this link rather enthusiastically, but it turns out that Benayers shared a link talking about the publicity efforts of Game of Thrones. So it totally made sense to include it on here for you guys to check out. The show’s PR team pulled off a rather large publicity stunt on the beaches of Dorset in England. They placed a giant dragon skull right smack in the middle of the beach. Cool, right?! I would have personally been really excited if I would have stumbled upon this in Dorset, but sadly I am nowhere near the beach where this fabulous stunt took place.

If you’re curious to see more of what Benayers has to share, go ahead and click on the following link. I highly encourage you to do so since he shares some pretty cool stuff. I mean, GAME OF THRONES. That is all I have to say.

https://www.diigo.com/user/benayers

Wait...not all PR is the same?

There's a widely held state of confusion when it comes to the definition of public relations. Most people that I talk to don't even know what it is. In fact, I didn't even know what it was until I took my first class in PR. You would be surprised at the actual definition of public relations: “the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company or other organization or a famous person.” So in other words, public relations is essentially a company, or famous person, relating to its publics. Sometimes this can roll over into advertising, marketing and communications, which is why people get so confused about what publicists actually do.

Well, yes, publicists do work with the advertising, marketing, and communications departments from time to time, but their main priority is to display a positive public image of their client to its audience. There are many ways in which a publicist can do this, and it all depends on the type of publicity that the client needs. For example, Coca-Cola does not require the same strategies as a celebrity would. Most publicists choose a specific area of focus that they solely work with because of the fact that different types of clients need different types of publicity. The various types of fields that publicists could specialize in include entertainment, crisis communications, investor relations, social corporate responsibility, non-profit, medical, automotive, and the list goes on, and on. 

The major differences within the subsets of PR lie in crisis communications, investor relations and entertainment publicity. Each of these requires a completely different strategic approach. Case in point, the Chicago Tylenol murders, which I talked about in a previous post. In this instance, a crisis communications specialist had to work in a timely matter to deflect the enormous amount of bad press facing Tylenol. There was no room for deliberation. Something had to be done, and it had to be done fast.

When it comes to entertainment publicity, a publicist’s busiest time is when his or her client is releasing a new movie, album, single, etc. The biggest goal is to get the client showing up on every talk show, every magazine cover, and every radio station. The client themselves has to be the one promoting the product. The publicist sets up the interviews and appearances, and gives the talking points. In the end, it’s up to the entertainer to pull off a good appearance, which can be very risky at times with certain celebrities. Publicists don’t always have the control they wish they had over their clients in the world of entertainment publicity.

Investor relations is probably the furthest away from entertainment publicity. The target audience for investor relations specialists is the shareholders of a publically traded company. So, in that respect, the investor relations specialist for a company will be the one drafting the quarterly financial earnings statement, and will basically deal with any sort of public financial issues. The investor relations specialist usually has a background in accounting or finance. Where as an entertainment publicist or a crisis communications specialist does not necessarily need a degree, an investor relations specialist will more than likely have a degree related to finance.

So, believe it or not, a term as simple as public relations takes on many meanings when it actually comes down to it, which is why people may be confused when they hear “public relations.” Hopefully, this post helped clarify some of the confusion.